re: Incoming Basketball Transfers

quote:

---

What makes him a good one?

---

I didn't say he was good.

I said

quote:

---

I disagree that he is necessarily a poor actual on-court coach

---

I was asking about the changing dynamics of the role of coach and if teams can hire GMs like the pros do. pro coaches are not responsible for the roster, why wouldn't college move that direction if we literally just hired GM this week?

you noted that will wade raised money and excitement. I am wondering if that is a requirement for coaches.

I believe I don't understand enough about the team and about basketball strategy to say he is a poor coach, so I have no comment on that. for all i know the players suck and don't listen.

Nah it really isn’t but as dumb as you are no one is shocked you don’t get it.

quote:

---

well maybe if he does well this year he can get some additional financial backing with the help of Ronald Dupree. wins bring excitement and support.

surely LSU can raise money without the person that does it having to be the same guy who does on court coaching. I don't see why fundraising and coaching have to be done by one person.

---

Dupree is a "name", but he's not been significantly involved in LSU basketball for well over a decade. Will some potential donors fondly remember him from the early 2000's? Sure. But probably not enough to make a massive investment into to the program simply on that basis. Plus, Dupree is a relatively quiet guy. Intelligent guy and probably someone who can help structure a roster, but not really the vibrant fundraising type of personality. I wouldn't take his addition to the program as the magic elixir. In fact, David Patrick is doing more of the pressing the flesh legwork.

The HC is the CEO of the program. He doesn't have to hold Labor Day telethons, but he needs to be connected with people from whom he is seeking support/money. Those folks want to feel like they have a relationship with the HC, not that he's just outsourcing his duties and asking for money.

If LSU basketball had one big donor to bankroll the whole thing like a St. Johns, or even Michigan in other sports it would be one thing. They don't. At least not for basketball. The Trent Johnson approach of "just leave me alone and let me coach" didn't work for him, and it isn't working for McMahon. Hell, look no further than the occupant of the other basketball office. Mulkey has Championship trophies on her mantles. Yet, she's out there networking with the right people.

Fundraising in college basketball has always been important. It's now maybe more important than ever If HC feels he don't have any money, then it's incumbent upon him to do what is necessary to get it...not blame everyone else for not giving it.

quote:

---

it's incumbent upon him to do what is necessary to get it...not blame everyone else for not giving it.

---

so your contention is that the position of LSU coach is largely a fundraising job, not a coaching job, because LSU is a school where the supporters are unwilling to support the team unless they are friends with the coach?

no fundraising apparatus that for example, hires a coach that purely does coaching could ever succeed?

if you are right, seems to me the problem isn't coaching at all, its the fundraising structure and the idiotic donors who don't want wins but to buy friendship with the coach.

quote:

---

Donors/booster have ALWAYS wanted access and inside relationships in exchange for their money

---

these donors are clowns.buying relationship is stupid.

quote:

---

cultivated relationships with them in exchange for the money he needed to (gasp! buy top recruits).

---

why the gasp, I don't understand that bit


seems to me its possible to have a structure in place where fundraising and coaching are different roles. maybe it isnt. if it isn't, then I think college sports are broken and stupid and we should move to a European sports model where universities are not relevant and good players go pro young and to team academies.

the way things work now, if it is as you describe, is stupid.

however, I don't agree with you, I think success is still possible by having the school and the GM and rev share etc funding the team such that the coach can be a coach and not a fundraiser. those two skillsets are so different that they should be two different people.

quote:

---

the way things work now, if it is as you describe, is stupid.

---

That's how it has worked for decades. Players didn't just start getting paid once NIL became legal. Today's NIL is yesterday's bag man. The only difference is now everything is legal and public. Because no one has to hide the payments anymore, players are more embolden to leverage the schools for more and more money...money that doesn't come directly from the school in the form of an employment contact.

Below is a former Miami booster (pre NIL) standing at an event with the University President. Another with the former Miami basketball coach, Frank Haith. There are countless pictures/videos of he and the Miami players he paid. The coaches at Miami knew about him and had a relationship with him in exchange for him paying the players to come to Miami that the coaches wanted.

quote:

---

however, I don't agree with you, I think success is still possible by having the school and the GM and rev share etc funding the team such that the coach can be a coach and not a fundraiser. those two skillsets are so different that they should be two different people.

---

The proposed revenue sharing (House settlement) is already being challenged. But even if/when revenue sharing becomes a thing it isn't going to cap NIL spending. The players will get some money from the school, but the big NIL deals on top of it will still be the driving force.

A GM is handling a lot of the perpetual negotiations. He's also doing some degree of fundraising. But a HC still has to get out there and get the money he needs from the people who have it.

quote:

---

if it isn't, then I think college sports are broken and stupid and we should move to a European sports model where universities are not relevant and good players go pro young and to team academies.

---

There is no market in such a league. The value in college sports is through the decades long goodwill entrenched in the schools, not the individual players. You watch this collection of players play basketball because they play for LSU. Not because you just like the guys personally. Take away LSU, Alabama, Florida, etc and it just becomes minor league basketball...which won't draw significant crowds (see the G-leauge)

We can lament about the way things are and wish they were different. Or the HC can accept reality and go out and help generate the money he needs to pay players.

quote:

---

well that's not true,

---

It’s absolutely true. Your pointless diatribes offered in your endless quest to absolve Matt McMahon of any responsibility for the current state of lsu basketball do nothing to disprove that.

quote:

---

many coaches have quit because they don't like the way things changed just now.

---

Coaches are quitting because of nil and the transfer portal. That’s what changed recently.

quote:

---

they don't want to fundraise, they want to coach.

---

College coaches have always been fundraisers. It is 100% part of the expectation of being a college coach, especially in a major sport. What do you think those coaches caravan tours every summer are for, exactly?

quote:

---

well that's not true, many coaches have quit because they don't like the way things changed just now. they don't want to fundraise, they want to coach.

"I realized I'm no longer the best coach to lead this program in this current environment" - Virginia coach Tony Bennett.

he means he doesn't want to fundraise, he wants to coach. it hasnt been like this for decades. 10 years ago you don't have to publicly gladhand Gordon McKernan to afford players. it was quiet, you maintained some deniability and distance, maybe got the cash through an assistant.

this is new. used to be a coach could coach and not be a fundraiser. I believe a coach still can, and he can offload fundraising to another bloke. this is where we disagree.

---

Fundraising has ALWAYS been an aspect of the job. Dale Brown didn't get all of his great players simply because he was good guy and LSU was a great school. He knew how to play the game and had great relationships with the boosters within Louisiana/Baton Rouge.

What they don't like now is being leveraged to the point they have to significantly flip their rosters yearly. Pre NIL/Transfer portal a HC got money from his boosters to pay the player, his family, and the AAU runners to get the player to sign out of HS. But once the guy was signed the HC had some security the player would likely remain at the school for multiple years. A transfer meant sitting out a year. The players couldn't leverage a transfer as easily because there wasn't as big of a marketplace for transfer. Coaches at other schools didn't want to pay huge sums for a guy who wouldn't be immediately eligible. In turn, that meant tampering wasn't as evident. Players didn't want to sit out a year either. That made it more likely you had a guy for at least 3 years because the benefit of transferring wasn't worth the burden of doing so in most cases.

That's not the case anymore. A HC has to get money to sign a player out of HS. Then, after one season, that guy is going to be in the coach's office wanting to renegotiate his deal with the leverage of going to another school where he will be immediately eligible. He, and every other player. That means the HC is squeezed into either raising more and more money to meet an ever increasing demand OR largely flipping his roster every season. There is nothing a coach can do to leverage the player into staying. For a guy like Tony Bennett whose approach was to sign certain types of guys and develop them over the course of several years into a veteran team with multiple years of experience playing together he decided this new world wasn't for him.

Yeah they never get rankings wrong.LOL.Just Like Walter Claytong not being ranked out of HS. And without Reed and Ward those ranked players had a much more difficult time having to depend on 4 freshmen and a Jr with very little experience.. I don't care if this class is ranked #1. That is all on paper. You can deny it all you want but LSU was not competing with the rest of the conference in basketball NIL.

That's true, but you provide no context. You can't count on freshmen to be major contributors unless you have one of the few 5 stars which they are very few. You need veteran returning players. Your best wing scorer Tyrell Ward was lost to the season due to mental health issues which wasn't foreseeable. Your best post player, by far, Jalen Reed, went down to a season-ending ACL injury before SEC play. Yes, you probably overestimated what you could get out of Jordan Sears at PG, and other than he and Cam Carter who was your only consistent scorer, were your only highly experienced players on the roster, and in arguably the best conference in the history of the game, no coach or team was going to be able do more than endure it. It's not excuses. It's just facts. The biggest problem that you could control was having more depth, but that's a big problem when you have a very small budget.